LG Chem 120kWh battery packs for sale to manufacturers "looking to exceed MS range"

More specifically, the battery maker says it can supply EVs that have a target range of 200 to 300 miles.

Click to expand...

I would expect a bit more range.

Let's see if anyone actually starts making an EV with one of these batteries in it. Hopefully soon.

Price per kWh? Energy density? Power density? How much capacity in gWh of production does LG have?

Where does one fit a 120kWh battery pack in a vehicle not specifically designed as an EV?

Considering it's been 3 years since the first Model S were delivered, I'm not too surprised that a 40% percent improvement has been made. That works out to just slightly above the improvement in energy density that Elon and JB mention (i.e. doubling every 10 years). Of course, LG says nothing about all of the factors that trils0n mentions above. If I had to guess, LG Chem's batteries aren't up to par with Tesla when it comes to price per kWh, power density, and production capacity.

It's still great news for the industry overall. I'm excited to see what auto manufacturers come out with in the next year or two.

Nomad said:

It's still great news for the industry overall. I'm excited to see what auto manufacturers come out with in the next year or two.

Click to expand...

Me too. I hope to see another auto make going all-in with a big battery, from the ground up strategy. But all new models generally take about 5 years to make it from design to production in traditional auto companies. Still good to see LG trying to push the market to the big battery area.

More specifically, the battery maker says it can supply EVs that have a target range of 200 to 300 miles.

Click to expand...

So they're ready to supply Model S batteries with a reserve of 35 kWh? /confused

Maybe they're ready to supply batteries for cars that are very inefficient and still get Model S ranges.

I read that story earlier this morning and it makes no sense to me. If somebody wanted to, why couldn't they take existing cells like the ones used in the Volt and build up a 120kWh pack? They didn't say anything about Ah capacity of the cells in question. Actually, this begs the question - is the Volt pack completely in series with no parallel cell connections at all? What about the Leaf? The only benefit to prismatic cells in my mind is that you could potentially build a single series string of cells to reach your target voltage and capacity. So, if they are saying that they now have cells that can be made into a 120kWh pack of less than 500VDC in a single string, now that's saying something. You would have to have 240Ah cells to make a 500V string come to 120kWh. I'm no expert, but I don't think they have reached that level yet.

Until it's on the road, vaporware. You can knock the Model S for being expensive, but you can't knock it for its range. Bring it. The more competition in EVs, the better.

Does LG make battery packs now? It seems like they've made a pack and now hunting for someone to supply it to? (And to design a new car around whatever form factor their battery pack is in?)

This doesn't make any sense. I bet something got lost in the reporting of the story.

Battery rumor of the day.

Tesla could make a 1000 mile battery if they wanted to. It would weigh 6000 lbs if installed in a production street legal vehicle, and cost $100k. Alternatively the current battery could power a go-cart for 1000 miles.

Stating a mile range for a given battery is meaningless unless it's integrated into an actual vehicle.

it also makes no mention of how many actual packs of that size that can make.
I would bet they don't have the capacity to do more than a really low volume vehicle and almost certainly not anything like 30-40K per year.

deonb said:

Does LG make battery packs now? It seems like they've made a pack and now hunting for someone to supply it to? (And to design a new car around whatever form factor their battery pack is in?)

This doesn't make any sense. I bet something got lost in the reporting of the story.

Click to expand...

I believe LG supplies the packs for the Chevrolet Volt. I don't know if they supply batteries for any BEVs.

igotzzoom said:

I believe LG supplies the packs for the Chevrolet Volt. I don't know if they supply batteries for any BEVs.

Click to expand...

They supply batteries for about half the BEVs out there.

Panasonic supplies Tesla and eGolf.

Samsung supplies i3.

Bosch supplies Fiat 500e.

Chinese suppliers supply most Chinese OEMs.

Then it is mostly LG. Spark EV,Focus EV, Renault Zoe, Smart EV.

And they have deals with MB,Audi and Porsche for their future BEVs.

Whether the underlying battery pack is real or paper, I for one am excited to see the announcement. Two reasons - I think of LG Chem as the biggest supplier of batteries that are readily accessible to a wide range of auto makers, and big batteries are at least enough on their agenda to put out some paper on the topic.

Secondly, they're clearly trying to one-up Tesla with an even bigger battery - I love that, whether its real or not. Competition has to be a good thing for the Teslas we buy.

Could it be vaporware? Absolutely. Might it be years and years before we see something approaching their press release in a shipping car that can be bought (or even reserved)? Absolutely.


It's still more than we had a month ago, and its another step along the path to at least 2 auto manufacturers building long range BEVs, and an auto market that again has competition. Even if I figure its at least 3 years ago.

Excellent news. The more big cheap batteries in the world, the better. We need a dozen suppliers and hundreds of factories. There are what, something like 30-40 million passenger vehicles being built each year? Only 450,000 of them have ever been able to be plugged in. That's finally increasing at a decent rate, but there is a long way to go. They ALL need batteries. As do the delivery trucks, service vehicles, etc.

miimura said:

I read that story earlier this morning and it makes no sense to me. If somebody wanted to, why couldn't they take existing cells like the ones used in the Volt and build up a 120kWh pack?

Click to expand...

Reading between the lines (and looking at the context) - I think what they are saying is they now have large capacity batteries that are small enough to fit into cars and be priced to compete with Tesla (notice how they talk about only Tesla offering long range EVs now). This would explain whey some German premium OEMs are announcing long range BEVs lately.

Obviously we need more information.